{"id":6984,"date":"2016-06-14T16:43:29","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T16:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/storage-snapshot\/"},"modified":"2016-06-14T16:43:48","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T16:43:48","slug":"storage-snapshot","status":"publish","type":"definition","link":"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/13596\/storage-snapshot","title":{"rendered":"Storage Snapshot"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span id=\"what_does_storage_snapshot_mean\">What Does Storage Snapshot Mean?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>A storage snapshot can be defined as a set of<br \/>\npointers to denote the data stored on a storage device. This storage device<br \/>\ncould be a disk drive, a tape or storage area network (SAN). It can be thought<br \/>\nof as a table of contents with each pointer describing the information or<br \/>\ndata stored on the disk. This snapshot is<br \/>\ntreated by the computer as a complete backup of data.<\/p>\n<h2><span id=\"techopedia_explains_storage_snapshot\">Techopedia Explains Storage Snapshot<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Just like a table of contents provides easy access to the contents in a book, a storage snapshot provides easy access to stored data and further speeds up the data recovery process.<\/p>\n<p>A storage snapshot provides a concise look at how a file or device looked when the snapshot was taken. It is not the exact replica of data, rather just a quick picture of how data looked at that particular instant.<\/p>\n<p>Storage snapshots can be classified into three types: copy-on-write snapshot, redirect-on-write and split-mirror snapshot:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Copy-on-write \u2013 Here data is copied into a pool of allocated storage. The major limitation of this method is that it impacts the performance of original data.<\/li>\n<li>Redirect-on-write \u2013 It is somewhat similar to the copy-on-write. It offers efficient snapshots in terms of performance and space as it does not deal in double writing.<\/li>\n<li>Split mirror \u2013 In this technique, a physical clone is created of the data which resides on a different storage space.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Does Storage Snapshot Mean? A storage snapshot can be defined as a set of pointers to denote the data stored on a storage device. This storage device could be a disk drive, a tape or storage area network (SAN). It can be thought of as a table of contents with each pointer describing the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7813,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"definitioncat":[249,241,223],"class_list":["post-6984","definition","type-definition","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","definitioncat-backup-and-recovery","definitioncat-computer-science","definitioncat-storage"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.2 (Yoast SEO v24.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is a Storage Snapshot? - Definition from Techopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Storage Snapshot and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Storage Snapshot\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This definition explains the meaning of Storage Snapshot and why it matters.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/13596\/storage-snapshot\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Techopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/techopedia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-06-14T16:43:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@techopedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/13596\/storage-snapshot#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/13596\/storage-snapshot\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Margaret Rouse\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#\/schema\/person\/f5dd538e31ee352d105b8af36c4268a5\"},\"headline\":\"Storage Snapshot\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-14T16:43:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-06-14T16:43:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/13596\/storage-snapshot\"},\"wordCount\":239,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/13596\/storage-snapshot#respond\"]}],\"articleSection\":\"\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/13596\/storage-snapshot\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.techopedia.com\/definition\/13596\/storage-snapshot\",\"name\":\"What is a Storage Snapshot? 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